When passenger jets mysteriously disappear

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Pakistan International Airlines flight Flight PK-661 crashed near Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing all 47 people on board, according to the airline. The airline said the flight was carrying 42 passengers and five crew members when it lost contact with a control tower on its way from Chitral to Islamabad. It crashed into the mountains near Abbottabad and Havelian.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A charter airplane with 77 people on board, including players from the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense, crashed near Rionegro, Colombia, outside Medellin, on Monday, November 28. At least 71 people were killed, officials said. Six survived.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared from radar on a flight from Paris to Cairo on May 19. Searchers recovered parts of the plane wreckage in the Mediterranean Sea, including passengers' personal belongings, life vests, aircraft chairs and even body parts. The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew members. The flight data recorder indicated possible lavatory and avionics smoke before the plane plummeted into the sea.

A Tara Air plane crashed on February 24 in mountainous northern Nepal. It was midway through what should have been a 19-minute flight. Twenty-three people were killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after breaking apart in midair in October 2015. All 224 people on board the plane were killed. The plane was en route to St. Petersburg, Russia, from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Wreckage is seen at the crash site of Germanwings Flight 9525 on March 24, 2015. The Airbus A320 was carrying at least 150 people when it crashed in the French Alps. The plane was en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

In this still image taken from video, TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 clips a bridge in Taipei, Taiwan, shortly after takeoff on February 4, 2015. There were 58 passengers on board the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop airplane that plunged into the Keelung River.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A portion of the tail section of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 appears on the deck of a rescue ship after its recovery from the Java Sea on January 10, 2015. The Airbus A320-200 lost contact with air traffic control Sunday, December 28, 2014, shortly after the pilot requested permission to turn and climb to a higher altitude because of bad weather, according to Indonesian officials.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in a field in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. U.S. intelligence concluded the passenger jet carrying 298 people was shot down. Ukrainian officials accused pro-Russian rebels of downing the jet, but Russia pointed the finger back at Ukraine, blaming its military operations against separatists.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over Southeast Asia on March 8, 2014. Australian officials said they believe the plane was on autopilot throughout its journey over the Indian Ocean until it ran out of fuel. In August 2015, authorities confirmed that a piece of debris found on Reunion Island was from the jet.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, 2013. The South Korean airline's Boeing 777 fell short of its approach and crash-landed on the runway. Three people were killed and more than 180 were injured.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Dana Air MD-83 carrying 153 people crashed on June 3, 2012, in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city. No one on the plane survived, and 10 people on the ground were killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Indonesian relatives mourn at the airport in Jakarta after a Russian Sukhoi Superjet slammed into the side of a volcano on May 9, 2012. Russia's newest civilian airliner was on its second demonstration flight when the incident occurred, killing all 45 people on board.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A plane crash on April 20, 2012, in Islamabad, Pakistan, killed 127 people. The Bhoja Air Boeing 737 was en route from Karachi to the Pakistani capital.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A plane carrying dozens of hockey players crashed on September 7, 2011, outside the Russian city of Yaroslavl, about 160 miles northeast of Moscow. Forty-three people were killed. One of two survivors later died of his injuries.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Hewa Bora Airways plane crashed on July 8, 2011, while trying to land in bad weather at the airport in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 74 of the 118 people on board were killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A survivor of an Iran Air Boeing 727 crash lies in a hospital on January 10, 2011. The plane went down a day earlier near the city of Orumiyeh, killing 77 of 105 passengers and crew members.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An Airblue flight carrying 152 people crashed into a hillside on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, on July 28, 2010. No one survived.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An Air India plane crash killed 158 people on May 22, 2010, after the jet overshot a runway in Mangalore, in southwestern India, crashed into a ravine and burst into flames.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A 9-year-old Dutch boy was the lone survivor of a plane crash on Afriqiyah Airways that killed 103 people near Tripoli, Libya, on May 12, 2010. His mother, father and older brother died in the crash.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashed as it tried to land at an airport near the Russian city of Smolensk on April 10, 2010. Kaczynski was among the 97 people killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed into the sea, killing all 90 people aboard shortly after taking off from Beirut, Lebanon, on January 25, 2010.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Caspian Airlines plane went down in a field near the north-central Iranian city of Qazvin, on July 15, 2009, killing all 168 people on board and leaving a huge, smoldering crater.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Yemenia Airways plane carrying more than 150 people crashed in the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Comoros on June 30, 2009. The Airbus A310 was en route to Moroni, the capital of Comoros, from Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An Air France flight carrying 228 people disappeared from radar over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. The Airbus A330 took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris and sent out an automatic signal warning of electrical problems.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

Colgan Air Flight 3407 (a connector flight with Continental Airlines) crashed into a house outside Buffalo, New York, on February 13, 2009, killing all 49 aboard the plane and one on the ground. Two occupants of the house survived.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A TAM Airlines jet skidded off the runway into a gas station and burst into flames on July 17, 2007, after landing at the airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. All 199 people on board were killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Comair flight crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, while attempting to take off from the wrong runway on August 27, 2006. The plane ran off the end of the runway, drove through a fence and crashed into trees on an adjacent horse farm. Forty-nine of 50 people aboard were killed.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

A Sudan Airways Boeing 737 crashed just after takeoff on July 8, 2003, killing 116 people. A 3-year-old boy was the only survivor.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An American Airlines plane crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport on November 12, 2001. The crash killed 265 people, including five people on the ground.

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Photos:Recent major plane crashes

An Air France Concorde, en route to New York, crashed into a Paris hotel shortly after takeoff on July 25, 2000. All 109 passengers and crew members died. Four people on the ground were also killed.

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Story highlights

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared early Saturday with more than 200 aboard

Three months after the TWA crash, former ABC News correspondent Pierre Salinger, who had once been President John Kennedy's press secretary, weighed in at a news conference that a U.S. Navy ship had brought down TWA 800 with a missile. Salinger came to this conclusion because of a document on the Internet making this claim.

Two years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, a relative of one of the passengers burns incense in Beijing on March 8, 2016. Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014, as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. There were 239 people on board.

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Photos:The search for MH370

On July 29, police carry a piece of debris on Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. A week later, authorities confirmed that the debris was from the missing flight.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Staff members with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory in Canberra, Australia, on July 20. The flap was found in June by residents on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania, and officials had said it was highly likely to have come from Flight 370. Experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the search for the plane, confirmed that the part was indeed from the missing aircraft.

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Photos:The search for MH370

In late February, American tourist Blaine Gibson found a piece of plane debris off Mozambique, a discovery that renewed hope of solving the mystery of the missing flight. The piece measured 35 inches by 22 inches. A U.S. official said it was likely the wreckage came from a Boeing 777, which MH370 was.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Relatives of the flight's passengers console each other outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Subang, Malaysia, on February 12, 2015. Protesters had demanded that the airline withdraw the statement that all 239 people aboard the plane were dead.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A police officer watches a couple cry outside the airline's office building in Beijing after officials refused to meet with them on June 11, 2014. The couple's son was on the plane.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Members of the media scramble to speak with Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 27, 2014. Data from communications between satellites and the missing flight was released the day before, more than two months after relatives of passengers said they requested it be made public.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks out of a window while searching for debris off the coast of western Australia on April 13, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

The HMS Echo, a vessel with the British Roya; Navy, moves through the waters of the southern Indian Ocean on April 12, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, on a mission to drop sonar buoys to assist in the search, flies past the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 9, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A relative of a missing passenger cries at a vigil in Beijing on April 8, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Australian Defense Force divers scan the water for debris in the southern Indian Ocean on April 7, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A towed pinger locator is readied to be deployed off the deck of the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 7, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks at a flare in the Indian Ocean during search operations on April 4, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

On March 30, 2014, a woman in Kuala Lumpur prepares for an event in honor of those aboard Flight 370.

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Photos:The search for MH370

The sole representative for the families of Flight 370 passengers leaves a conference at a Beijing hotel on March 28, 2014, after other relatives left en masse to protest the Malaysian government's response to their questions.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A member of the Royal Australian Air Force is silhouetted against the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing jet on March 27, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Flight Lt. Jayson Nichols looks at a map aboard a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft during a search on March 27, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

People in Kuala Lumpur light candles during a ceremony held for the missing flight's passengers on March 27, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, delivers a statement about the flight on March 24, 2014. Razak's announcement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH 370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."

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Photos:The search for MH370

Grieving relatives of missing passengers leave a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A passenger views a weather map in the departures terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 22, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A Chinese satellite captured this image, released on March 22, 2014, of a floating object in the Indian Ocean, according to China's State Administration of Science. It was a possible lead in the search for the missing plane. Surveillance planes were looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in remote, treacherous waters more than 1,400 miles from the west coast of Australia.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Satellite imagery provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, showed debris in the southern Indian Ocean that could have been from Flight 370. The announcement by Australian officials raised hopes of a breakthrough in the frustrating search.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Another satellite shot provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows possible debris from the flight.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A distraught relative of a missing passenger breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 19, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

On March 18, 2014, a relative of a missing passenger tells reporters in Beijing about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet.

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Photos:The search for MH370

U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations in the Indian Ocean on March 16, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on March 13, 2014. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, search efforts expanded west into the Indian Ocean.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Malaysian air force members look for debris near Kuala Lumpur on March 13, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on March 11, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported on March 8, 2014. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews on March 9, 2014, before returning to search for the missing plane in the Gulf of Thailand.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

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Questions swirl after airliner vanishes

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Questions swirl after airliner vanishes01:57

Three years after TWA 800 went down, EgyptAir Flight 990 left JFK International and soon plunged into the Atlantic, killing more than 200 people on board.

Two competing theories about what happened emerged. The NTSB, widely regarded around the world as the most authoritative investigator of plane crashes, concluded after a three-year investigation that one of the Egyptian pilots, Gameel al-Batouti, had intentionally downed the plane.

NTSB pointed to the fact that the downward trajectory of the plane was inconsistent with mechanical failure. Based on the recovered cockpit voice recorder, NTSB also underlined al-Batouti's constant use of the phrase, "I rely on God," and his lack of surprise when the passenger jet suddenly began descending.

In Egypt, this was not a popular view, and Egyptian officials pointed to supposed mechanical failure as the cause of the crash.

The conspiracy theories that developed around TWA 800 were caused by unreliable eyewitness accounts and Internet rumor-mongering. In the case of EgyptAir 900, Egyptian officials would not accept that an Egyptian pilot would commit suicide, killing many others, and came up with an alternative explanation for which there was scant evidence.

In the case of the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, there was a deliberate effort to inject a conspiracy theory into the narrative of the events.

Pan Am 103 blew up over Scotland on December 21, 1988, because of a bomb in the hold, which killed 270 on board and others on the ground.

Juval Aviv, who presented himself as a former Israeli counterterrorism official, was hired by Pan Am to investigate what happened.

In his report, Aviv claimed to have proof that the murder of the passengers on Pan Am 103 was the result of a CIA sting operation that went awry, an assertion for which there was not a shred of evidence.

Yet a piece partly based on Aviv's fairy tale then ended up as a cover story in TIME magazine. The U.S. government later concluded that the attack was ordered by the Libyan government, something the Libyans would eventually concede was, in fact, true.